HALLBERG-RASSY 69
ALI, MESSI, SERENA... AN ELITE FEW CAN BE CONSIDERED A G.O.A.T (GREATEST OF ALL TIME). BUT CAN A BOAT? IS THIS HALLBERG-RASSY 69 THEIR GREATEST EVER? WE HAD AN EXCLUSIVE CHANCE TO FIND OUT
TOBY HODGES
Where: Skagerrak waters off Ellös on Orust, Sweden.
Wind: 7–18 knots over two days.
Model tested: Hull No1 with a high standard spec level but also extensive options including carbon in-mast furling rig, Code 0 on a powered furler, hard-top dodger and a big lithium power pack.
It was proper cold. An honest cold that cuts straight through us soft southerners, unused as we are to minus double digit temperatures. The docks were covered with gnarled ice, while the Ellös marina lay still and frozen. It only served to make the Hallberg-Rassy 69 look all the more commanding and inviting as its welcoming interior lights shone through the copious hull windows into the low Swedish light of December.
The warmth of the centrally-heated, timber-lined interior is something special, a quality matched only perhaps by the regal feeling of sailing this, the greatest (in size) Hallberg-Rassy of all time. I discovered this first hand once we’d parted the thin ice layer, navigated out past the snow capped islands guarding the yard and were into a bitingly fresh offshore breeze, whereupon this Frers-designed flagship had the searoom to hit its reaching stride. Despite the significant extra wind chill, the temperature somehow began to feel less overbearing, and the sailing experience became all-absorbing as we averaged double figure speeds. With ease. The new model was going like a locomotive, wonderfully assured, powerfully clocking off mile after mile, and offering a transcendant helming experience.
The Hallberg-Rassy 69 has that power, that magnetic magnificence. It’s as grand as a production yacht can get, the largest and by far the most expensive Hallberg-Rassy in the company’s 80-year history. The yard has built 9,700 yachts in this time, and has produced landmark and particularly large models before – think the HR49 in 1972 and the HR62 in 1998 – always designed to be easily managed. But this, the 25th Rassy German Frers has drawn since 1988, is something else.
Both on deck and below it’s still very much a Hallberg-Rassy in every way. It speaks precision quality, but not in a showy or glitzy way, rather in this brand’s renowned, refined fashion. From the mechanical installation to the joinerwork, it’s how this traditional Scandinavian yard does things – to a production level of perfection – in this case crafted over a 16-month build.
To achieve this it
